They’re Going to Huff and Puff and Blow the Justice Department Down
They’re Going to Huff and Puff and Blow the Justice Department Down
Let us all remember the names of Republican elected officials who have called for defunding law enforcement. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
If the right’s responses to the FBI raid on Mar a Lago weren't so tinged with violence, the situation could be considered comical.
Millions of social media followers of high profile right wing activists have seen messages suggesting violence in response to what they say is a ‘war’ being waged against the former president.
Steve Crowder told his 6 million YouTube followers:
defunding” and “dismantling” of “our intelligence agencies” and the FBI over the raid on Trump’s seaside mansion. He also called for a purge, imploring the GOP to get revenge.
“The next president of the United States needs to prosecute everyone,” he said. “Needs to clean house everywhere.”
“If a Republican gets in, investigate everybody, raid everybody,” he added. “Use all of it. I don’t care if we become Nicaragua at this point.”
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“Are you ready,” far-right influencer and “Pizzagate” conspiracist Jack Posobiec wrote in a series of hyperventilating tweets to his nearly 2 million followers on Twitter. “The federal security state has declared war on Donald J Trump and his supporters.”
“Lead, follow, or get out of the way,” he wrote. “Leviathan has awoken…Welcome to the end game.”
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Steve Bannon, who served as chief strategist in the Trump White House, said on Fox News that “the FBI right now is the Gestapo.”
Former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka, went on Newsmax TV wearing a lapel button from a far right Hungarian group known for its antisemitism:
These sentiments and worse were found throughout right-wing social media:
“The Dems are starting a civil war.”
“Is this the first shot of a civil war? Is this the tyranny mentioned in the 2nd Amendment? The Founding Fathers would have started shooting a long time ago!”
“It’s time for a civil war. The deep state has proven they are real, they are corrupt, they are dictators.”
“Civil war! Pick up arms people!”
“The fbi just declared war on the republic. Treat them accordingly.”
“A civil war is coming after what the DOJ did today.”
“August 8, 2022 will be remembered forever. The start of Civil War II.”
“Our government is pushing for a civil war. Americans are only going to take so much.”
“I already bought my ammo”
“Civil War 2.0 just kicked off.”
“Let’s do the war.”
“One step closer to a kinetic civil war.”
“Lock and load”
“Let history show that Biden and his DOJ drew first blood with this raid on Mar-a-Lago.”
“FBI is headed by Jews. I warned you about these demons.”
“We’re at war.”
“It’s going to be wonderful to see FBI agents get killed in the future!”
The web page for the federal magistrate who signed the search warrant for the Mar a Lago property was taken down after Fox News named him with a headline claiming he’d donated $1000 to the Obama Victory fund in 2008 (He’s also donated $500 to the Bush campaign). Other right wing researchers proceed to publish his home address and other personal information.
Here ya’ go (wink,wink), because everybody knows the FBI can only investigate one case at a time.
(The claim being made by Keith Oberman and others that the magistrate in question was appointed by former President Trump is not true; they are appointed by circuit court judges.)
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The ironies inherent with the FBI raid abound, especially when it comes to the supposition that the warrant was based on unlawful possession of classified materials.
This morning Newsweek and other publications revealed that the raid on Mar-a-Lago was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents.
The officials who tipped off the press, who had direct knowledge of the FBI's deliberations and were granted anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters, said the raid of Donald Trump's Florida residence was deliberately timed to occur when the former president was away.
The date of the Mar a Lago raid has historical significance; August 8, 1974 was the day then-President Nixon announced his resignation. His subsequent attempts to claim control over White House documents led to passage of the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act of 1974 to seize Nixon records pertaining to Watergate and government abuse and preserve them in the National Archives.
Four years later, Congress passed the broader Presidential Records Act requiring every president to archive official records (the 1974 act only applied to Nixon). The new act went into effect in 1981, when Ronald Reagan began his term. The 1978 act established that presidential records are not a president’s private property; they are public property that belongs to the government.
In 2014, Congress updated the act to include electronic records like email and Twitter, the latter of which President Donald Trump regularly used to make public announcements about firings, policy and foreign relations before being banned from the service.
In 2018, then-President Trump signed a law making it a felony to remove and retain classified documents, largely in response to allegations concerning former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
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For all the Gestapo talk this week, a new book reveals that Trump wanted his military advisors to be more like “the German generals in World War II.” According to an excerpt in The New Yorker from the book “The Divider,” by Susan Glasser and Peter Baker, Trump was annoyed that his own generals were prone to push back on his orders rather than accept them with blind loyalty.
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Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com